1,000-year-old fragments point to oldest skin boat

Pieces of an ancient umiak, part of a trove recovered in an archaeological dig near Barrow, Alaska, around 70 years ago, have just been identified as having come from the oldest skin boat assembly yet found in the circumpolar arctic.

The University of Alaska Museum of the North announced Tuesday that Jenya Anichenko, a researcher with the Anchorage Museum, had determined several fragments from the Birnirk site as belonging to the same boat. Radiocarbon dating indicated that the fragments are 1,000 years old. Anichenko said that was 400 years older than the previously known examples.